#the fucked up thing is shes the only person who i think would genuinely be devastated if i died

[corviddusk]

begging you to talk to people outside of tumblr about transandrophobia. trying to genuinely engage in shit i see against it, especially on your blog, but its like the most bad faith worst case scenario thing is applied to all trans men who believe in it, which kinda fucking sucks. i know a lotta people who dont follow gender queer dykes because of the shit they pulled. we arent a monolith of people who believe the worst thing you can think of. it feels like if i were to say all leftists were tankies, or all trans women were blair white, or an endless list of other comparisons that could be made here.

above all so many of these posts read so gleefully cruel. im glad people are having fun with coming up with dumbass nicknames for the group they dont like. but fuck you cannot engage with activism or social issues like this longterm. it burns you out, it burns bridges, 0 healthy irl activism spaces would let this shit fly. i understand if you dismiss this now, but as someone who was deep in this shit its so fucking unhealthy. you cant exist constantly second guessing every other trans person, now more than ever we need to stick together. have a good night

Strangely I'm not only on Tumblr for the entirety of my life. It's weird you would assume that I magically never talk to other trans people... Almost like you're trying to push a narrative.

Genderqueerdykes just said the quiet part out loud. Transandrophobia as a theory is based on the idea that trans men are oppressed by "the fear of men" aka "misandry" almost every single post I've seen on the topic leads to the strange idea that Transmascs are inherently more oppressed by misogyny than transfems because of being "female". Consistently there's a push to see transmascs as women lite and claim things that primarily TERFs agree with. Considering how often the transandrophobia tag is filled with self proclaimed TWERFs agreeing with the ideas of transandrophobia or saying things like "GOD YES they understand those disgusting MALES always speak over and take over all spaces" and that's honestly just exactly what transandrophobia theory pushes.

If you think I'm being gleefully cruel you have not seen me at my worst. You want to know what gleefully cruel would be? My worst moments in the midst of my manic psychosis? I was docking people because I delusionally believed they were a danger and possibly going to murder my ex-mentor. I was purposefully saying carefully constructed insults that played on people's traumas and I knew would cause large amounts of suffering for them because I believed they deserved it and I was being righteous. You know nothing of cruelty. I am a better person now and it's laughable you think this is anything akin to that.

You know what my abusive cult leading ex-mentor believed in and pushed? Transandrophobia. You know why she pushed it? Transfeminists called her out for being a predator. You know what happened when I listened to her? I got predated on and brutalized. I'm still trying to work through all the shit she did to me. She fucking broke me. And the fact that multiple major members pushing Transandrophobia have allegations of similar abuse, grooming, or rape? That means something.

Transandrophobia theory is a cover for abuse and I'm sick of people pretending it isn't.

[iminyourwallsbabe]

Yk what I feel like I haven't yapped about CaitVi enough and that's a disservice to my fellow sapphics so this word vomit is for you girl kissers out there

Okay so it goes without saying that CaitVi is kind of divisive. Some people love it 100%, some people think it could've worked better under different circumstances, and some people outright hate it, all viewpoints I understand. I'm the type of person who appreciates it for what it is.

I think the first thing I wanna touch on is the idea that their ending was supposed to be a happy one. I don't think it was. Honestly, I think it was more of a pause than anything. You weren't supposed to go "oh yay good for them", you were supposed to wonder what happens now. The end gives us, and the characters, an opportunity to just get our shit together and move on. So much just happened, there was little time to really, deeply think about it all. I'd like to think that they did work their shit out post-canon. However, I can see why people would think they wouldn't have.

I'm gonna go reverse chronological here. So one of the more glaring issues is whether or not Caitlyn switching sides was authentic and came from a place of genuine understanding of her mistakes. In my opinion, not quite. She was getting there but it would take the final battle for it to really set it. I said this in another post, but when she's sitting there before Ambessa, gun to the back of her head and knife in her side, she looks terrified. Obviously that shit is scary but it's more than that. Caitlyn is more afraid of dying than ever before, because if she died then, that would mean she had no way to fix what she had done. It was setting in just how badly she fucked up and now the entire world is at stake, and what can she do? Nothing. Think back to season 1 when her biggest gripe was not being allowed to do anything substantial or important. It's this again, just more extreme. She wanted to help people then, now she needs to and she can't.

And I think that's what she needed. She has never really been on the receiving end of the consequences of her actions. Not until then. As we've seen in the early parts of season 2, it weighs on her heavy when she thinks she's made a grave error. That's why she even started acting up in the first place. She's willing to abandon all of her morals and growth for the sake of remedying what she thinks she did. So with that in mind, I can imagine when she goes back to Vi, she feels the same if not worse because this time, what happened was actually her fault.

But now we need to talk about Vi and her place in all of this. One of many people's complaints is that Vi folds so easily when it comes to Caitlyn. And you're right, she folds like a fucking napkin but that's not just "oh I'm in love so I'm gonna do whatever for my girlfriend", it's more than that and has nothing to do with Caitlyn specifically. First of all, she has been stuck in Stillwater since she was a teen and hasn't seen the light of day in 7 years. MIND YOU, when she went to jail she was separated from her sister, who at that moment was her only living family member. OH YEAH DID WE FORGET THAT HER ENTIRE FAMILY DIED IN FRONT OF HER THAT SAME NIGHT? It is not a surprise to me at all that she clung to Caitlyn like saran wrap. That tends to happen when you're that fucking lonely. I'm of the belief that it could've been any other woman in the world instead of Caitlyn and she still would've acted the same. I also think that's part of the reason she joined the enforcers. Vi probably thought she was going to lose Caitlyn if she didn't. That doesn't really have anything to do with Caitlyn, that's an internal thing. Again though, are we really surprised that she'd get that desperate? But wait! There's more. After she does join and she tries to call Caitlyn out when she's done too much, it goes very wrong. It's at this point that some people wonder why she didn't just go back to Ekko instead of acting like she was all she had left. I need y'all to be so fr, you think Ekko would've been cool with that? And don't say "oh but he's so forgiving to Jinx" or something, that's just not true. He knows she's dangerous to the people of Zaun and can't personally allow that in his space or his life. It doesn't make it hurt any less but he's very clearly not having that shit. The same would've happened with Vi. She would've came back, he would've been like "I love you but FUCK NAH", and season 2 would've been exactly the same. She would've had to do some serious convincing.

But I say that to say that realistically, Caitlyn was all she had. She couldn't go back home after doing what she did, she definitely couldn't go to Jinx, everybody else is dead, that was it for her. Now we're in the glorious crash out era. I think there's something to be said about the glimpses of Caitlyn we get in that sequence. Those were hallucinations, going off of the fact that Jinx has her own and that more than likely, they share some of the same underlying mental illnesses. Breaking up with Caitlyn like that probably set it off. The straw was starting to break the camel's back. I also think it's interesting how Caitlyn left Vi similarly to how Vi (technically)left Jinx and that's when these issues start. I think it was a good way of showing that Caitlyn was right in a misguided sort of way. It is her blood in her veins. She is not that far off from Jinx, and they both can sit there and go "oh yeah she's crazy" all they want but Vi and Caitlyn were both one or two crash outs away from being like her. If anything, you can argue they kind of got there. Both of their ways of dealing with their pain involved hurting people. Caitlyn with her military dictatorship and attempted mass murder, Vi with her pit fighting, it's not at all the same in severity but conceptually... yeah, all of y'all are of fucked up.

You know I sometimes made jokes about how Caitlyn looks like Vi's mom and kind of acts like Jinx/Powder and how Freud would've had a field day with that but that's not exactly what's happening. I mean the mom thing is still a little sus but like I said before, they both have Jinx tendencies. If anything, Vi sees a reflection of herself in Caitlyn, because one of the big differences between the three of them is that what Vi and Caitlyn do is controlled. Caitlyn enacts violence through military means and generally gets permission to do the things that she does. Vi fights in a pit, that's the time and place for that. Jinx kind of does whatever she wants, except for when her mind/body makes decisions for her. She goes into panic mode and she shoots something, it's almost a natural instinct. If it's not that, it's kind of just "I felt like it". Also, their fears are coming from slightly different places and manifest in different ways. Jinx doesn't trust anyone to stick around, so she tests them and pushes them away. Vi doesn't trust anyone to stick around so she does whatever she can to keep them with her. Caitlyn doesn't trust herself to keep the people she loves around, so she becomes overly protective of them. Are we seeing what I'm saying here? It's like a hall of mirrors with these three but we're not here to talk about their relationship to Jinx, we're here to talk about them.

With this in mind, let's talk about the Fantastic CaitVi Coping and Communication Skills!!!! So the first thing they do when they join sides again is just be freaky as fuck. Like you think Vi spitting on her was a necessary part of the plan? Hell nah! Like honestly you could shoot a hole through the sexual tension between them good lord. Some people argue that the sex scene was unnecessary but looking at how they were acting before that? I'm not surprised that it went the way it did. Jokes aside though, seriously, the fact that they hadn't really addressed what happened properly and just went straight to pound town is so painfully on brand for both of them. Neither of them are good at addressing their issues. Post breakup, Vi became an emo alcoholic and Caitlyn became a whole ass dictator, I don't think they were gonna sit down and talk about their feelings. And honestly, I don't think that closure mattered nearly as much to them as it does to us as the audience. They have bigger issues, yk, like the glorious evolution and all that. Do I think that's necessarily a good thing? No. Do I think it's in character? Very. Anyway, this is why Vi is like "Cait, I don't fucking care" when she tries to begin saying anything about what she did when they were apart. She doesn't fucking care. Not at all. That's not what's important to her in that moment. It's also interesting that the first thing Caitlyn tries to apologize for is for sleeping with another woman, not trying to kill a whole bunch of her people. Notice how she went for the small thing first? She doesn't want to think about the other stuff. Neither of them do. And so they do what they do best and found a totally unhealthy distraction. In this case, it's ✂️🧁.

I think as a fandom we put too much emphasis on what's healthy in a show full of the most insane people I've ever seen. Trying to find a perfectly healthy relationship in this show is like trying to find a super niche website from 2003. You could probably do it but oh my fucking god would it take you a while. And y'all don't have nearly this much to say about Jayvik even though bro was like "ppl from the undercity are dangerous!!!" right to Viktor's face. Not to mention all the other issues they got going on. Jayce straight up killed a child with Hextech, like let's be fr. They're not all sunshine and rainbows and if we're going to criticize CaitVi the way that we do, we gotta have the same energy for Jayvik.

Anyway, I say all that to say that it's hard to focus on what the most therapist approved decision for your relationship is in these conditions and it doesn't make a ship any worse because of that.

I also don't like the idea that it's too unhealthy to be functional. It has the potential to get better and it's implied by the ending that it does, or at least starts to. Think about it like this, if two people on opposite sides of the political spectrum are friends, what do you assume is actually happening there? One party has to be compromising on their beliefs. There's no other way. If you cared so strongly about something, it'd be hard to keep company that opposes it. It's like that with CaitVi. They were on two different sides of a war and Caitlyn had to shift what she believed in order to even befriend Vi let alone be her lover. That whole "oh ur all the same" bit had to go. If anything, it makes me believe that end of season 2 CaitVi is actually healthier than season 1 CaitVi on a fundamental level. Caitlyn's view of Zaunites by the end of season 1 is attached to Vi. Vi was one of the good ones, Vi proved that there was some hope for those people, Vi was an exception. This is why she got so mad in season 2 when Vi tried to tell her she was bugging out. That's why she says "it's her blood in your veins" with so much vitriol. She gets indirectly victimized by a Zaunite, who has already been established as an extremist, and all of a sudden everybody down there is bad again. If you care about them at all you're bad too. At the end of season 2, Caitlyn is amused when she notices that Jinx is still alive. If that doesn't say anything about how much she's developed I don't know what does. Even if she doesn't like her, she doesn't have that same blind hatred anymore and that's the part we have to pay attention to. She's gotten to a point where she thinks even Jinx should have the opportunity to have a second chance. I'd rather date that than Caitlyn "wait you don't have parents?" Kiramman.

That's basically it, shout out to the writers for actually knowing how classism/racism/all the isms tbh actually work and what it looks like to change your beliefs as a a beneficiary of those systems, goodnight

[raccoonconnoisseur]

My theory about a potential Helena pregnancy subplot in Severance S2, why I don’t think she would have planned it, and what it could mean for the characters:

Okay so a lot of people are theorising that Helena could be pregnant after the tent scene in S2E4 and that her entire reason for going down to the severed floor was to get pregnant because she’s an only child and single and she’ll be expected to produce the next Eagan heir.

With the theme of pregnancy throughout the show and all of the baby imagery in the title sequence I think she could be pregnant but I feel like if she is it wasn’t intentional. Here’s why:

It’s obviously entirely possible for somebody to get pregnant after having sex just once but the chances of it happening is pretty small (from what I could find online it appears to be about a 25% chance each month if you’re having REGULAR unprotected sex around the time of ovulation - thank you Huggies website - so it’s even lower if it happens just once). Lumon and the Eagans are meticulous - there’s no way they would send her off to sleep with somebody in the woods just once and cross their fingers she would end up pregnant (it would also just kind of be lazy writing/way too convenient)- they would have a whole ass operation going so it would happen regularly until she conceives.

I think they sent Helena down instead of Helly not because she wanted a baby but just because they couldn’t trust Helly R - they knew she’d tell MDR the truth and it could spoil everything. She already hated herself and tried to end her life before she knew she was an Eagan and it would only triple that hatred now she knows who she really is. On top of that MDR had been working fine before she joined, then within a couple of weeks of her arrival, the team is going rogue trying to do the OTC? She was too dangerous to let back down there - they knew Mark would demand Helly back but Helly is feisty and will not budge from her goals of fucking shit up.

So Helena was to go down to the severed floor instead and impersonate Helly (which would also allow her to spy on them and what they’re up to while still tricking them into thinking they had more freedom - remember one of the first things she does is point out the missing cameras). But then she found out about Mark and Helly with the security footage and Helena - who has been raised in a cult-like corporate hellscape, who was manipulated and moulded from birth to be the perfect future heir and was never allowed to be herself - was genuinely jealous/intrigued because this version of her who she doesn’t even see as a real person, who just existed for a publicity stunt, has built more genuine relationships in just a few short weeks than Helena has in 30 years. She went down as a mole and genuinely came out preferring who she was down there. I think she was genuine when she told mark in the tent that she didn’t like who she was on the outside - it was a rare moment of her letting the act down he just didn’t know it.

So how does this link back to pregnancy and babies? Well as mentioned, the title sequence is full of babies and baby imagery. We see a baby Kier emerging from the snow at Mark’s feet at the end of the title sequence (emerging from the snow where it was maybe conceived?) Baby Kier - a baby Eagan. While I don’t think it was intentional on Helena’s part, I think she could end up pregnant and it could be a massive turning point for both Helly and Helena.

We know Mark and Helena meet up again outside (the diner scene in the trailer). Now he’s reintegrated he knows who she is both inside and out. So their outies (or outie Helena and reintegrated Mark I guess) must end up having some kind of character arc. I’m wondering if he’ll confront her about why she pretended to be Helly and ends up getting dragged into the whole situation now he knows a child is on the line. Half of him still wants Gemma (who I think it truly dead but that’s a matter for another time) but the other half of him genuinely wants Helly and - because of the way reintegration messes with your time perception as Petey explained back in S1) they are equally as strong feelings.

So for the even more out-there, very unlikely way I could potentially see this going: I’m wondering if it’s possible Helena deciding she doesn’t want her child to be exposed to the same cult-ish, toxic upbringing she experienced - wanting her child to be given a good life, the chance to be their own person and not just a pawn for a corporate entity - and so she chooses to help the innies out and expose the company in a parallel to how Helly R did at the end of S1 - this time it really is Helena speaking. In a way (although she was still a terrible person and did some really awful things) she finally does something good and proves she isn’t just a one-note evil stereotype. Then I could see her potentially deciding to either reintegrate (I think less likely) or permanently sever herself (more likely) because she prefers the person she is when severed than in the real world - essentially killing Helena Eagan and the Eagan lineage for good and instead giving the innie - who she didn’t even see as a real person at first - a life she could never have.

[beneathsilverstars]

okay the loop pronoun thing its like its like the splinter in my mind that sticks out just enough to get caught on stuff and irriatate the stuff further in.

because they start off with the royal we before going oh wait thats a personal thing not how other people refer to you. so that with the masking literally everything i am genuinely completely undecided on if the pronouns are like they actually just dont associate any with themselves anymore, their lying and covering it up so siffrin wont suspect anything or if its like they just need some time to be around people again and then itll be like ohhhhhh thats why i like these right.

and from there it goes into we literally have no idea how they act around people. okay they were siffrin but now have been so completely transformed by the looping that they are different enough to qualify as someone else.

they get called shy by the party but is that because they realize talking to them will have permanet consequences? is it because they remind them of who theyve lost? is it because they just havent talked to anyone aside from siffrin?

if they got comfortable around others would they be sassy like they are around siffrin?

loops everything is so wrapped up in the timeloops that its like there is almost nothing that can be said for sure about how they would act outside them at this point its like yeah they were siffrin but theyve forgotten all that and are different at least somewhat from everything.

the looping time really has utterly crushed them and then remolded them into something new and it is shown so so well through what is and isnt there about them and its so irritating they are literally a puzzle begging to be solved and the pieces are all blackened from fire and some are a bit out of shape and its like this used to be a solvable puzzle but at this point who knows!

yesss i do think the they/them was just the quickest default that they at least knew they didn't hate, and they're no longer Siffrin Enough to share siffrin's preference for he/him or they/them, though they may now (or one day) have their own preference for they/them. sometimes i give loop more pronouns later because there's no way they won't change a lot post-loops! (or in aus where they've otherwise had more time to think about it and try things out.) i'm fond of she/they/it loop but i may be biased lol

WE JUST KNOW SO LITTLE ABOUT THEM!!!

we know they were siffrin, a long long time ago.

we know how they act with siffrin, who doesn't yet know who they are, during the timeloops -- which are all three very big and specific criteria.

and then we know how they acted in acts 5 and 6, which are also super unique and unreplicable situations! obviously in act 6 they were just faced with the fact that a happy ending was possible all along but it can now never be theirs, on top of this being the first interaction in which siffrin knew loop's identity and loop knew siffrin knew. and then in act 5, this was their first interaction with the party as loop, which only happened because of desperate circumstances, and started off on the very wrong foot of utter devastation at not being recognized, which meant they abandoned their plans and improvised, all while everyone is super worried about siffrin and then trying to navigate the fucked up house. very weird and overwhelming situations!!

you can draw clues about how loop might act post-canon from all of these things we know, but you can't just straight up extrapolate, yknow? their in-game feelings and motivations just will never again apply in the same way, post-canon. and on top of the new contexts in which they'll be living, their trajectory will surely be strongly affected by their immediate post-canon circumstances, to the point that even putting them back into more-familiar contexts somehow would now provoke new responses. they could go in so many directions!! we just don't know!!!

sometimes people are talking about how loop would act post-canon and they say things so definitively and im like. man i think it depends 😭 we know so little about them and they know so little about themself.

[marzipanilla]

I think I just desperately miss shows with 20+ eps a season.

Even with him fumbling it I would love Mark actually attempting to be a bastion of morals/attempting the right thing. I think they're almost trying to do that this season with his confrontation with Cecil, but it all falls so flat because Mark struggles to even articulate why he thinks he's right to begin with except by defining himself as not his father. Once more we missed out on him attempting to find a role model people consider good and doing what he could in his power to emulate and either learning something about what being a beacon for ppl means or realizing that everyone fucks up and purity culture in a trauma response job ain't gunna get you no where. He's so obsessed with power level he doesn't realize he needs to actually learn things. Like why it's important to help people at all. He doesn't know apparently, since he can't explain to Oliver that being a hero is more than killing people who were hurting others. hint Mark- it's because the unilateral power Cecil fears you capable of wielding is the same shit he wields

We need flashbacks to Nolan's time w the Guardian bc what was that like before he had the slightly awkward shit we see in S1 ep 1. Immortal mostly trusts him during the white house attack and is genuinely horrified at the thought of him hurting the team ! Unlike in the comic where he just says 'I've always hated you' which like I could take either canon- tho it really feels more like a dick measuring contest gone wrong instead of 'I knew you were bad I just couldn't put my finger on it' in the comic.

Team dynamics my beloved. Wonder Woman was under some rubble and Batman was desperately digging her out and they made him stop and when she emerged a moment later she noticed the dirt on his hands !! and comforted him even tho he tried to hide the fact he was scrambling to get her out ! no words just actions ! like ! give me tiny character moments -sob- The JL getting coffee and blankets for each other when sleepy D : (and more a character moment than a team moment but Clark crawling into the rocket he came to Earth on to hide bc his dream monster form was hurting people and he just wanted to be safe !!! all visual never discussed w dialogue !! beautiful!!) Also Lisa Edelstein showed up as a voice for a side char and I spent the whole ep going who ??? until I saw the credits lol

Oh that's a fun scene! I've maybe only ever seen the first Madagascar film lol But yeah, even changing the tone- please let the team play off of each other! We get .5 seconds of that in S1 during the end of the Machine Head fight. a tiny. tiny moment. Definitely limitations and budget for animation, but gah- like !! the whole squad going up for the sequid invasion threat and literally two people doing anything at all !! like !! WHY DID ALL OF YOU GO YOU LITERALLY DID NOTHING. Blame yourselves for what happened on the ground team, like, damn, the whole team did not need to go into space. You'd think you would have figured that out by now.

Everyone gets female characters jewelry in media and I hate it lol Look, there are times it can work- heirlooms, genuinely discussed mcguffin/backstory pieces where whatever it is means something, but the vast majority of the time it's just a shiny necklace picked up from the fucking mall. And what do the women get their men? Insanely thoughtful gifts about their personalities and interests. If you can only think to get your partner jewelry, then you fucking know nothing about them at all. My biggest example of this is from the show Castle, where one episode has the main chick setting up a recreation of Rear Window for the main dude to experience/play out like it's real bc he's stuck at home on his birthday. The entire episode is about what goes down. When it's her birthday? He buys her a necklace, and it's a subplot to whatever it going on in the ep, and it's a comedic subplot bc he loses it at one point and most of the antics around the gift aren't even about her. And then he gives her the necklace at the end that we're never going to see her wear again because she has a job where wearing shit like that isn't a good idea.

I fucking hate jewelry as a gift. It says I don't know anything about this character and I refuse to put any effort in.

Also is Kate gunna where her fucking wedding ring on missions??? like ??? what ??? Then again, I think Nolan, Mark and Eve are legit the only heroes in the entire series who have secret identities/civilian identities, so like- I guess it doesn't matter?? 90% of you have your fucking name as part of your hero name if you have a name at all. A part of me is glad the show never really deep dives into those stories, they sort of did with Amber in S1, and they bring it up a bit with Debbie telling Paul this season, but like, at the end of the day, this is a world where secret identities are 1000% just... not a thing. Everyone calls Mark, Mark. Like. EVERYONE. To the point that it didn't even occur to him that A SPACE ALIEN knowing his first name might have been a red flag in S2 when he went to Thraxa.

Mark is only strong in the 11th hour and I would hope someone is genre savvy enough to realize that by now. Do not call on Invincible unless everyone is already dead, he is worthless otherwise lol

The rogue's gallery is kind of sad for this show. Like. There is no personal element to any of the reoccurring villains (there's like.. one coming up that's personal and then there's Levi), and if you want them to be menacing and reoccurring they either really need to rep something socially bad and you're commenting on it each time they make their appearance and its about THAT and the teams response to it, or you need a personal connection with the villain. Doc Seismic just makes broad strokes first semester of college level commentary about the current state of society! Tho, I will say, I think his token diversity comment is literally the first time Mark has been acknowledged as not white? Which like, I get not bringing it up all the fucking time especially since it is a change from the comics, but, it IS a change from the comics and in either medium he is a mixed race kid! We ever going to give him a chance to talk about that? You know, the thing he and Oliver SHOULD ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO TALK ABOUT THAT'S PERSONAL TO THEM AND HUMANIZING AND NOT ABOUT HAVING COME OUT OF NOLAN'S DICK? Where is the moment where Oliver is slathering on make-up to go outside and lamenting on not being human passing the way Mark is? Where does Mark get to acknowledge being alien?

Cecil did go to Debbie in an attempt to get a hand in Oliver's training and it IS wild to think about what that would have entailed. 'Cause like, I think he woulda seen that kid go 'and then I kill them now, right??' and had to go : / pretty damn quick about it lol Also him constantly antagonizing Mark after everything is hilarious. Like. Are you trying to prove to everyone watching that Mark is also being unhinged or are you Just Like That Cecil. Like, when Cecil called off the reanimen but they kept beating on Mark- was that just him putting in a false call to make it sound like he was calling them off and then Mark went cray cray on them anyway, or did he genuinely try and call them off and it didn't work for some reason? Bc him trying to get other heroes on his side by showing off how powerful/dangerous Mark could be is kinda funny.

Some blank space is fun to work with in fic, but too much blank space and it feels like you're floating in the ether going ?? this ?? make sense maybe ?? but then what do you push off of? Just make up some shit to justify why the char thinks that way or skip over justifying it and hope the narrative stays strong despite it?

While I'm not too familiar with the DCU- your batfam meta posts are intiguing- so in transfering some of the broader strokes from them- I think you tackling a 'Mark isn't Nolan's biological son' fic would be fascinating. Sort of a step to the side of the 'what if Mark never got his powers' fic that sometimes pop up in the fandom

OOOOOO chewing on this currently, hm, the much a distinct flavor of exactly what you’re talking about, but the potential for more family drama depending on WHO knows. Does Mark know?? Is he waiting every day only to be crushed? Does he confused non-Debbie features with Nolan’s? I suppose I’m not the most enthusiastic about non-power AUs, but I think there’s something very fun to explore about Mark having to settle with, if he knows all his life, he will never have powers? I think the trajectory of his dreams will obviously shift, I can see him still having that distinct fatherly idolization, but perhaps embraces being useful to the GDA? Cecil’s number one intern—only intern—curtesy of nepotism, ha! There is something tickling me about Mark taking the Robin Route/Role for the Teen Team in terms of having no powers, just insane skills, BUT there’s something way more delicious about intern Mark when s1e01 happens and Mark tries snooping around to find out the truth about what happened to his Dad.

I wonder if, with Mark having a whole another father, if they’re more or less distant relationship, depending on WHEN Nolan entered Mark’s life? Like if Debbie met Nolan later for this, or just for fun, they dated once, separated (Mark being born during then), then they happened to stumble into each others lives again and Mark’s already been born, anywhere from tween to teenager so there’s a gap in how close they are. I feel like one important aspect of the whole Family Drama is how close they’re supposed to be, a functional, loving family turned upside down? So I wonder what more distance does. I wonder how Nolan copes when his family is entirely human and he can’t project onto Mark.

I love thinking about these, omg.

[fingertipsmp3]

Why have I only just realised that Cytherea was so interested in Gideon because of her name being Gideon

[morningmask27]

I'm going to be bitching about Star for a while now. I'll tag them all with #asc spoilers, but really what the fuck was this book?

[denkilightning]

thats literally all ive been thinking about while reading the dark island trilogy but especially part 3

because

really??? is that it??? is that it, mr. most unreliable narrator since the dawn of time????

i know ive fallen down a conspiracy rabbit hole i dug out myself BUT

here are the facts

1. libber, cliff, clouse and everyone else were very much alive and had a chance of meeting at a point in time (serpentine wars/hands of time fighting)

2. clouse doesnt have a last name

3. we dont see libber fight in serpentine wars, only with the hands of time

4. clouse at chens order magiced krux and acronix into fucking up the alliance and all went to shit

5. we only learn of libbers existence in the season with the hands of time. we never hear from her ever again and get 2 mentions from jay who doesnt even know her name or what she looks like

6. clouses magic in dark island trilogy is strictly shown through purple lightning

7. we dont see libber in the scene where clouse and chen are sent away

so my conspiracy has 2 parts:

1) cliff and clouse are brothers/twins

CLIFF AND CLOUSE HAVE EXTREMELY FAMILIAR DESIGNS. like if i didnt tell you its two separate people theres a high chance one would think its the same person

furthermore they have the thing where almost every siblings pair we have have a similar naming convention/something tying them together

like nya and kai having three letter names and krux and acronix having the [kr] and -x in their names

CLiff and CLouse sound a hell of a lot like something youd name your twins

2) libber and clouse were close friends

i genuinely think libber met cliff through clouse because it makes way more sense for an elemental master and a dark magic apprentice to meet than an elemental master and an actor

on top of that after all these years of studying edo magic (magic derived from the element of earth) clouse still chooses it to form as lightning

So What I Think Happened Is:

clouse libber and garmadon (along with cliff idk being there ig) met and were in regular proximity with each other/were friends while clouse and garmadon studied under chen. garmadon went off to fight in the serpentine wars while libber stayed behind.

then chen makes clouse manipulate acronix and crux to continue the war.

for some reason (probably because shes pregnant cus im pretty sure kai was already born during the hands of time battle?? like itd make sense timeline wise?? and we dont see lily so cole is prolly born too even tho i know its said it was 40 years ago, timelines suck in ninjago) that makes her leave clouses side and fight the time twins

what then happens i dont fucking know except that libb gives birth to jay, leaves cliff and leaves jay in the junkyard

what i think happened is she was on the run from the hands of time and destiny itself. since apparently fighting fate and space-time fucking up runs in the storm-amulet family. personally i think shes become one with the sky the way nya did in seabound (BECAUSE WHY THE FUCK DO SEABOUND AND SKYBOUND HAVE THE SAME NAMING CONVENTION HUHHH)

so clouse was cheated out of a position he worked for years for, tried to redeem himself in the eyes of chen, only for his best friend to leave him (and fight by his arch-nemesis' side) and then directly because of what he has done have her die/disappear without a trace and none of the 'good guys' did anything to save her.

THATS a good reason for harbouring this much poison for garmadon, wu and his students. Thats a good reason to save both himself and jay from getting blown up in season 4. Thats a good reason for wanting the entire world in darkness.

because he lost his best friend and his only light years ago. because maybe from the darkness and purple lightning and indiscriminate power maybe he can bring her back.

hi so can we talk about how lightning is representative of evil and dark magic in ninjago and how it reflects on the elemental masters of lightning or....????

[m0e-ru]

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to the day my brain was literally rewired and my gender was being changed by the second SO HERES A GAS STATION SPECIAL before this joint was even a gas station in the FIRST PLACE !!!!

FUCKING FREAK

[johndonneswife]

not a sad ‘woe is me’ post so don’t send me weird messages but: the thing abt cycling through every ED possible and being bulimic for like 10 yrs & making yourself vomit up to 10x times per day on ur worst days is that your teeth and gums will eventually give out on you (bc it doesn’t make a difference if you’ve been good & it doesn’t matter how well you’ve taken care of your teeth for the last x years) and u will be 30 years old crying to your very sweet and kind dentist when she tells you about the 1 million things that are wrong with ur teeth

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

The I feel like she sees me line being said to Eddie who is the person that truly sees Buck for all that he is. Are we supposed to take this line at face value which would indicate piss poor writing because they needed to rush to a horrible ending or do we take it as Buck being an unreliable narrator? What was the audience supposed to interpret from Buck saying that, were we truly supposed to believe him or we supposed to be pissed at Buck for saying this to the one person that truly sees Buck?

Good morning to me, I guess.

I'm assuming you haven't really seen people's reactions in the fandom on tumblr because I feel like I saw this said in quite a few posts going around, but you are absolutely not supposed to take this line at face value. I'm surprised that people think you should. 9-1-1 has from the beginning had a habit of turning friendships into romantic relationships (Bathena and Madney) and taking their time with these things rather than having an instalove situation. Even Karen and Hen, who meet when they're set up on a date together, don't instantly fall in love. I do not think they would set Eddie or Buck up for an endgame relationship with a woman by having them date that woman immediately, even if they didn't plan to make Buddie canon.

Buck is clearly struggling post-death. He's lost and once again looking for the answer from a romantic partner. He did a lot of growth in regards to his family relationships this season but not his romantic ones. Remember, his couch ended up destroyed and he asked his latest girlfriend to pick the new one out for him. Again. He's still not picking his own damn couch. After being unable to sleep on the one his mom gave him but passed out instantly on Eddie's where he ran to feel safe.

If people think this is all, somehow, an accident or the writers are doing this without knowing what they're doing, then I can't help you. Do you also think the symbolism I put into my fanfics are a total accident? Do you guys think I picked the name of the poem "Fuchsia Emerald Alizarin Rose" just because the colors are fun and they accidentally spell out F.E.A.R. or do you think maybe I did that absolutely 100% on purpose and was waiting for someone to realize?

Buck saying that to Eddie is 100% supposed to make the audience raise their eyebrows. Especially when we see Eddie's reaction. He's confused and he's hurt and he's annoyed. Eddie then spends his next few lines showing Buck (and us) that he sees Buck. Buck misses it, it goes right over his head, but the audience is shown that Buck is wrong and Eddie sees him.

I think there was a lot of internal stuff going on behind the scenes way high up the ladder that meant Buddie didn't happen this season. No, I don't mean that in a tinhatting way, I just mean that they knew Fox wouldn't renew them, they didn't know if they'd get picked up somewhere else, Fox hasn't promoted or cared about this show the way it has its other shows in a while, and I think it's pretty clear there was shuffling and changes going on with 6B. So I think things had to be put off. Similar to the pandemic, where I genuinely wonder what kind of season four we would've gotten if we'd had the full 18 episodes and hadn't had to work around Covid. I think that when we know there was a big shift going on behind the scenes, we need to have some grace and patience in how that will effect the story that's told on screen.

But I think that this default to "everything good we see on our screens is an accident and the writers are making shitty choices" is a horrible bad faith argument, and it's exhausting. Aren't you exhausted? I'm exhausted. Fandom shouldn't treat the writing and production team like their enemies any more than the writing and production team should treat the fans like their enemies in some kind of war they have to win (looking at you, GoT showrunners).

We are supposed to be annoyed that Buck is missing the point. We are supposed to see Buck's yearning to be a husband and a father, and how he's missing what's right in front of him. We are supposed to put two and two together and see that Eddie was hurt by Buck's words, that Eddie sees Buck, that Eddie is Buck's safe place, and that Eddie in that moment decided he might not have a chance with Buck and needs to move on, because previously we saw Eddie admit he wants romance again but he doesn't want to go out on dates, we saw his aunt say she met her husband through work, we saw him say 'we have time' and then we saw him immediately after Buck tells him about this new girl who "sees him" flee to visit his mother and then immediately actually try dating. On a meta level this is also because Eddie needs confidence in himself as a romantic partner and needs some more experience under his belt before he's ready to take the plunge with Buck, but in Eddie's mind, I think it's pretty clear he feels Buck will never want him back and he's trying to find the love he wants somewhere else, even if his heart is still Buck's.

So that's what I think. I think it's not explicitly spelled out for a few reasons, but frankly if one of them was a woman we wouldn't need it explicitly spelled out and personally I kinda like that it's not. Something that annoys me with M/F pairings is the constant "we all know you two like each other" talks from third parties that half the time aren't about the characters but are about the audience, to either tell the audience SEE THEY LIKE EACH OTHER THAT'S WHAT THIS IS ABOUT or to give the audience some fanservice while the characters aren't ready to get together. I don't need to be pandered to that way, thank you, so I'm a fan of the slightly more subtle approach that I, personally, see going on with Buddie.

If you or anyone else disagrees with me and feels it was just "piss poor writing" then that's entirely your right. I'd just appreciate it if people who feel that way would stop watching the show, and stop putting their complaints into the inboxes of people who clearly do enjoy the show.

TL;DR - You answered your own question, Buck is an unreliable narrator (and always has been) and we are supposed to be frustrated he said this to Eddie who has proven time and again (and does so in that very scene) that he sees Buck.

[welcometoteyvat]

 xingqiu, gold accents, ginkgo leaves, the light golden color tea gets in sunlight

hu tao, also gold accents, mahogany wood, smoky things, spider lilies unfurling in the dark. but it would be cool to edit her art so it’s more high contrast (darker outfit and hair) with stark black plum branches against winter snow 

chongyun, white, clouds, wisps of chill wind. fluffy things and a big fur coat

majority red palette ningguang would also be cool

and of course, zhongli with gold orange. old man can’t beat the geo lord cor lapis soulmates (ambiguous relationship) with azhdaha allegations

[rocaillefox]

the anime romantic killer does genuinely seem like just a tone shift away from becoming a horror show

[marzipanilla]

It's come up before but YES scar erasure as horror. As memory loss. As losing those connections.

Truly, the only thing we know for certain about Debbie is that she has the most unhinged relationships w the men in her life : /

Now I'm just trying to think about how to spin a Cecil DOES get involved at that stage and neither Mark nor Debbie raise him and the hilarity of that lol Given how much I find Oliver's entire personality to be a plot device and not genuine character development, I still see him turning into a massive little dick wad- but Cecil having to call Mark to like, come 'round up his brother and Mark wondering if his absence in his life is what caused him to be a dick (no Mark, apparently he's just built that way but you wouldn't know that for sure in this AU) and just the general fuckery of once more having to confront a member of his family lol

Or him TRYING to take care of Oliver solo and just failing so hard at it that he has to beg Cecil to help him bc he doesn't want to go to his mom. Give us THAT Fucked up parental/mentor dynamic.

In the comic it is stated the Oliver remembers everything from when he was a baby, but I'm not sure if the show is keeping that. I imagine they are, they're keeping a bunch of other stupid shit, so Arguably he is VERY aware of his origins but I would still be curious to know how Debbie and Mark framed it for him. How they discussed it. As he continues to not experience any empathy or compassion for other living beings I'm sure the show will get into it ?? maybe ?? bc yeah I would think spending the first few months of your life in the wreckage of a city your dad's people destroyed would affect you maybe, but somehow it just resulted in Oliver really liking his dad- like what DID Mark tell him ??? Dad USED to be a hero called Omni-Man but not anymore?? how sugar coated was it?? did Debbie refuse to participate in that convo ???

The one alien thing we get from Oliver being that Debbie had to chew his food for him makes me gnash the walls. Like this fuckin' kid grows up and still names himself after his absentee dad who ruined BOTH his moms' lives (I consider fucking up her planet/city and abandoning her to be a bad thing for Andressa however chill she was about it). like. what the fuck happened there? Why would Mark spend so much time building up their dad when he clearly still has plenty issues about how he views the guy ??? If Oliver is watching videos on the internet, how many of them are of Omni-Man destroying Chicago? Putting Mark's head through a train? Where did you pick up being an asshole Oliver ??? WHERE

Literally giving that kid ANY Thraxan/bug like traits. any at all. let him shed. have bug out eyes. No ears, just antennae. Or his ears aren't ears, but his antennae so they are weird solid/no hole in them/more malleable than a person's ears. Bone spurs in his forearms from the little extra forearm doohikies they have! anything about him aside from being purple that distinguishes him as not human. (oh sorry, viltrumite)

Mark agreeing to go hang out on a beach w Debbie instead of refusing and the beach is Beach City (am now officially thinking too much about this crossover lol)

The way I got caught up on our back and forth I almost forgot this, lol! AND OH MY GOODNESS, IMAGINE? I forget exactly what which point Debbie makes the beach offer, but I’d love when exactly in SU/SUF-timeline they’d go? There’s something so fucking funny to me about them going during the SUF-timeline and always narrowly missing the strange, Steven-shaped mental breakdowns in the back. I know those don’t occur in a single day, but it’s tickling me. How could they miss anything? I don’t know I just think it’s funny.

Though, post-SUF is interesting if Gems can see the similar “world on your shoulders”, Mark has going on! Steven can shunt the narrative in the Gems’ minds, which I think is neat, if I’m not misusing the phrase since the guy’s on the road far away. Or maybe it’s just before Steven goes and they stumble into each other. I’d kinda love Pearl and Debbie interacting, honestly, if they could talk about loving someone who hurt you, hide things from you, even when you thought you knew them so deeply, and they left you to raise a child. Pearl being in a well adjusted space, and Debbie still grieving.

Honestly, the gems could help train Mark, they’re got experience and similar-ish powers in strength, sturdiness, and they can jump/run fast enough for flying to be vaguely similar enough to lecture about, I think. Or Lapis Lazulis, haha! Peridot with her trash can lid! Garnet, I’d love to see if she told Mark anything about his future in vague, well meaning advice. Or even giving relationship advice considering Amber. Or, importantly, how to convince an entire reign to end their colonizing ways, lol. Is Mark perhaps willing to start a war, take advantage of being related to any leaders, or fake his own death to varying results?

In general, there’s something so fucking funny to me about Nolan, in the sake of comparison, being Pink Diamond coded. Like OH, did an important or well respected of the colonizing empire come to earth and learn the beauty of its people and nature, including faking/lying/omitting things about his identity and background to being in, only to feel conflicted when his responsibility still remained, and he tried to free himself from them? Yikes! We’ve been through that before! Like gimme Pink Diamond and Nolan outfit swap rn. This is tickling me so much oh my goodness.

[aly-s0ares]

its come to my attention now that im less public about having meltdowns and begging for *one specific persons* attention because i thought i *deserved better* than to be treated like a joke or a toy someone could just throw around whenever they want, that im getting less attention from men.

like yall can’t try and play the knight in shining armor to try and get into someones pants so you just don’t even try and honestly that’s pathetic. you shouldn’t have to try and love bomb someone vulnerable into liking you.

i feel complete and utter disgust that these men think i’d be down to hook up especially in a bad time. i’m not easy, and i don’t play games.

[kavehayati]

Even logging in here makes me feel sick whatttt